The magician Derek DelGaudio performs in “In & Of Itself” at the Daryl Roth Theater.Credit
Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times

Derek DelGaudio, the creator and star of the stealthily entrancing solo show “In & Of Itself,” is a magician, a raconteur, a Conceptual artist and conceivably a mind reader. He is also, as he’ll tell you, a wolf, a dog, a son, an orphan and “more than just an elephant.”

But here’s the real question: Who are you?

Enter the lobby of the Daryl Roth Theater, and hundreds of cards hanging from pegs will confront you. Arranged alphabetically, each announces, “I am” on its top half and includes a distinct phrase below — “a ray of sunshine,” “a hobo,” “a water protector,” “a pornographer,” “an arborist,” “a U.F.O. abductee.” Ticket holders are told to choose how they’d like to be seen. (I took “the walrus,” because it made me laugh and reminded me of my grandfather, who used to do a tableside comedy bit with chopsticks in place of tusks.)

“In & Of Itself,” directed by Frank Oz, is ostensibly a show about identity. How we see ourselves. How others see us. How Mr. DelGaudio, a phenomenally talented magician last seen in the two-sorceror show “Nothing to Hide,” can set himself apart from the rest of the abracadabra crowd.

It’s a tantalizing theme, especially in a political moment when how you voted or didn’t can seem like identifier enough. But this premise is mostly loose scaffolding on which to arrange a short evening of sly and artful deceptions and effects.

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Dressed in a three-piece suit, with a gaudy purple tie hovering below his stubbled cherub face, Mr. DelGaudio tells some stories and does some tricks. Backed by Mark Mothersbaugh’s electro-twang score, he divides a pack of cards; he disappears a brick; he presents an audience member with a note from a nearest and dearest. He recounts a tale he heard in a bar in Spain and offers a more personal story about discovering his young mother in a clinch with another woman, and crying that night because he knew he’d never have a dad.

Throughout, he sprinkles fortune cookie bons mots of the kind he would have mocked in the rowdier “Nothing to Hide”: “Every secret has a weight.” “True identity is that which exists in your own heart and is seen by others.” “Knowing you won’t believe me is the only reason I’m going to tell you the truth.” Oh, please. Who comes to a magic show for truth? It’s enough to make you wistful for capes and linked rings and cockatoos.

There are other hitches, too. For much of the evening, the buildup for each trick is too lengthy, the commitment to personal revelation too patchy. Mr. DelGaudio seems torn between wanting to deliver gee-whiz effects and wanting to withhold them in service of something more sophisticated. Often, he retreats into a kind of formality although his looser, cockier, dude persona is more winning. And the aggressively bland title is the kind you choose only if all other titles have been taken.

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Derek DelGaudio, creator and star of “In & Of Itself.”Credit
Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times

But here’s the real wizardry: The show works. Beautifully. Tenderly. Astonishingly. Those “I am” cards return for the finale, and while it would be unsporting to say too much more about them, they allow Mr. DelGaudio a momentary connection to any audience member who proves willing. To watch this routine is to see 20 or 30 or 40 people each receive a private benediction and leave the theater, heads aswirl.

If you have a restless mind or an allergy to amazement, you can make some decent guesses about how this trick is done, but where’s the fun in that? Wonder is a rare commodity these days. So take a card. Any card. And find it.

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